States of emergency were already in effect in both North Carolina and neighbouring Virginia but Isabel's impact was likely to be felt far beyond, with some of its heaviest rainfall hitting Washington DC.

Vehicles raced out of the area down empty roads and past deserted villages and boarded up shops.

However thousands of diehards in the hurricane's path were determined to defy the storm, ignoring "mandatory" orders to evacuate their homes and move to higher ground inland.

"They can't handcuff you and take you out," said Tony Sawyer in Roanoke Island's Elizabethan Inn. "And if you get into trouble, they have to help you. They'd better. We've been paying taxes for 50 years.

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"I'm safe here. Here I don't have to struggle with the flooding or fight the traffic."

Locals were holding a last, pre-hurricane council of war over breakfast in the inn, displaying stoicism and fortitude similar to the the Elizabethan settlers who founded the first English colony in the Americas, here in 1585.

"I tried to get the wife to go because of the hurricane, but she won't," said Duke Geraghty. "I really don't want to hear her nagging all night if our roof blows off."

Sheltered behind a strip of resorts with names such as Kill Devil Hills, Salvo, Waves and Duck which will bear the main brunt of the storm, Roanoke Island may not suffer the worst of the wind, rain and flooding ahead.

While hurricanes are normally associated with the tropics, this stretch of North Carolina looks more like East Anglia with bigger dunes and grander, but still flimsy, beach houses.

With Isabel still 400 miles away, 10ft waves were already crashing against the Outer Banks yesterday and early sun had made way for overcast skies and a blustery breeze.

Forecasts suggested that Isabel would hit land as a strong category two storm on the five-step scale that measures hurricanes' destructive power.

Category two storms can badly damage mobile homes and roofs, rip down power lines and cell telephone towers and block roads with felled trees and utility poles. Power cuts were expected and utility officials said the storm could force the shutdown of a nuclear power plant on North Carolina's coast.

Forecasters predicted up to 10 inches of rain on North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, a region already saturated from months of above-average rainfall and vulnerable to flooding.

Residents responded by making last-minute purchases from the hardware stores, even if they sold out of generators and plywood long ago and many were shutting up shop before the storm hit.

"If you got sand in your eyes during a hurricane, you'd want them too," a woman named Gina said as she bought 11 pairs of goggles for the members of the local fire brigade.

"It's all part of the same game," said Fletcher Willey as he bought nails. "The fact that we have cooling breezes in summer and folk come here to escape the heat inland means we have high winds during the hurricane season."

Many locals had sprayed mocking messages to the hurricane on boards nailed over their windows. "Go away, Isabel," one said. "Bring it on, Isabel," another dared the storm.

Even faced with the threat of Nature at her fiercest, some residents insisted in living in the comfort they were accustomed to. At the Elizabethan Inn the breakfast chatter touched on the new breed of generators and the uses they are put to.

Some locals could not do without the chilling draught supplied by their air conditioning even amid the chaos and destruction of a hurricane, it transpired.